Comment by duxup
2 days ago
Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get seems unrelated.
I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized" SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the previous day as a regular vehicle.
I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson learned.
I'm pretty sure by now the various "classes" of service offered by Lyft and Uber are instead just ways for the customer to donate money to Lyft and Uber. There's no difference in what kind of yahoo shows up in what kind of beater.
I pretty much just use it to book black cars these days - at least in my local city where those require licensed livery drivers. Good experience there for the most part. Most of the time I’m using Uber it’s either a business expense to the airport or I’m booking for a large party anyways.
That and I guess UberXL - otherwise it’s pretty fungible.
The interesting bit is that black is often pretty much the same price a UberX about a third of the time.
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It varies a lot by country.
In my experience in west europe, booking a uber XL you usually get a full size van (vw caravelle/multivan, Mercedes v-class or a bigger Renault Trafic) with usually 7 to available seats.
Booking a uberXL in Mexico City gets you a miniSUV with only 4 available seats and if you get too much checked luggage it goes on a roof rack.
It's also impossible to book an Uber with 2 child seats so, i guess i'm effed then.
search "mifold grab and go booster" on amazon
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Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes do nothing!"
Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by the same percentage across each route--but only after the ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely close to the price I was charged.
I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time, they removed it. The second and third time, they declined to remove it.
I now "decline" riding Uber unless there's no other option.
As much as I love to hate on Uber and Lyft, tacked on fees like this are often due to state / federal government, and the rideshare service hands are tied. Uber tags on a very long list of random fees when I Uber out of SFO, but when I investigated them, they were all random taxes from the city / state.
If they want to jack up the prices they can just increase them - they don't need to add random fees.
Not knowing what you'll pay for something until the moment you actually pay is considered normal only in the US.
Where I am, Uber shows a price, I pay that price. Whatever fees are included is not my problem.
The main problem here is that the stated and billed sums were much different.
Sure the state and Uber can add whatever fee they like. But not after I accept the ride.
My core concern was the amount charged differed greatly than the amount quoted by not by any intra-route traffic or temporary circumstance, and it was the same percentage across all three rides. This also occurred in 3 different parts of the U.S. during the same few months.
Additionally, these municipal fees are fixed so if that were the case, Uber would know about them in advance, be label them as such, and/or fold them into the quoted price.
SFO is not really municipal. It's a private commercial property.
If we don't like we can choose a competitor /s
Uber seems wilfully deceptive in so many ways. The initial listing of rides including details of vehicles and prices, which looks like an actual offer, but the app then goes off to try and find something similar. Try being a shop, selling someone an item and then going out back to rummage around and see if you actually have anything like what you sold. And then the 'fixed price' you agreed on gets arbitrarily changed on half the trips if traffic gets worse or the driver takes a different route. If I book a trip from the airport, the airport's charge for rideshare lane usage isn't an "unanticipated expense". It's just skeezy.
I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by things like luggage.
+1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people + light suitcases
There is no option to say “send me a mini van”
There is a newer option that is closer to that - "Uber XXL." (https://www.uber.com/newsroom/airport-travel/)
...XOR?
So it can carry the 2 extra people, it can carry some luggage, it can't carry both, and it can't carry neither?
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Book a maxi-cab or a dedicated airport transfer service.
Agreed. I want van.